MOM Hint II

[pchang]

When I first got the game, I played it on a Pentium 100. Now I play it on Pentium III 750. If anything, I think I am a better player, but the games seem harder. I can't prove it, but it seems like a better CPU results in a slightly better AI.

[pchang]

I finally played a game where I got a message that my outpost had been deserted. I had built it on a site that said it would grow to a max pop of 11. I have never had this happen before. It must have been some major run of bad luck with the random number generator. I sent another settler to the same spot and it seems to be doing OK.

[Father Beast]

Thanks, Pchang.
I hadn't thought of sending another settler there. I had thought it would die, too. And my settlers wre just too expensive for me at that point in the game.
I don't know what governs this. I'm going to get back in and see if it can fail once it grows into a hamlet. food shoratges usually mean lost units instead of lost pop. I don't hink I have ever lost pop, even when that one wizard kept casting corruption on one of my cities

[pchang]

I just realized that I need to amend my last post. My original settler which died was a dwarf. The settler which turned into a Hamlet successfully was a halfling. I think this may have made a big difference. I did not do this on purpose. I just used the first available settler. As for Hamlets failing, I have never seen it. I have never seen a fully functional hamlet or above lose population due to starvation. I have lost population due to a lot of other reasons, but never to starvation.

[Rex Little]

Hamlets never fail or lose population due to starvation. The only way they can disappear is being destroyed by an attacker. Only outposts can die spontaneously; we're all assuming it's from starvation, but the game never makes this explicit.

[Ecthy]

Yeah, I often noticed I had lost an outpost due to starvation... never got a message about it, though....

BTW, has anyone else noticed the Arcane spell of Disenchant Area causes the game to crash? I'm forced to use sorcery magic in order to get the Disenchant True spell, since the arcane one doesn't work... tough luck

[Ecthy]

Originally posted by Shadowstrike
Hmm... is there a way to win on the harder levels without using some trick which makes the game ridiclously easy with free Sky Drakes? The game is good, but when you can get Sky Drakes for ziltch, there's something wrong..... And the AI is horrible, horrible, horrible..... Allies sit on their spellbooks, and more likely then not, they all gang up on teh human player for no good reason.

I have to admit, I sued to have problems with AI / diplomacy for a long time... but exchanging spells and giving tribute is just the way to keep peace

[pchang]

Disenchant Area does not cause a crash in my version. Is there a German language version? Maybe you can reload a clean copy and patch.

You can win without exploiting loopholes and stuff on hard and impossible. However, you have to be really aggressive and get a little lucky at the beginning.

[Ecthy]

I use the same English 1.31 no-CD version most of us use

[pchang]

In that case, I don't know what to say. The game does not crash when I use disenchant area and it never has.

[Ecthy]

no more hints or questions about MOM then?

anyone ever hunted an enemy settler for longer than 5 turns?

[Rex Little]

Why hunt an enemy settler at all? I wait until he's built his outpost and it's grown to a hamlet, then I walk in and take it over.

[Ecthy]

1. I need my military units elsewhere

2. they mosty play as klackons or lizardmen

[pchang]

chasing settlers

I often spend many turns chasing enemy settlers. I also spend a lot of time chasing after enemy units in general, especially when the stack contains a hero. Whenever the computer retreats, it seems like he survives 90% of the time. Whenever I retreat, I only survive about 50% of the time. I think the computer cheats in this regard.

[Rex Little]

Yeah, I've noticed that about computer retreats. But since he never retreats unless there's a hero in his stack, and since he does incredibly stupid things in combat which let you win (or at least survive) with inferior forces, I don't begrudge him that small cheat.